The Dancing Boy
by Insert a Catchy Penname Here
Summary: A one-shot about a young girl named Lia who meets a troubled young man who's just about given up on life dancing on the street for money. "What's the point?" he groaned in his miserary, and she patted his hand gently for comfort, "Things will get better if you ask God for them too," she promised softly.


The Dancing Boy

**Author Note: **I dedicate this story to my friend Jenna and my best friend Sam. They have both given me new light on my Christian life, and I am forever grateful and thankful they are in my lives. I love them both because they are my soul sisters and I always will

I always must dedicate this story to Jesus Christ and God. Without Them, I would not be here, living a blessed life and doing my best to shine light to those not as blessed (or who think they are not ) as myself.

Thank you all

"_**For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins." ~John 3:16 **_

Lia smiled as she announced the verse they'd all been assigned to learn in Bible School the previous week. The teacher beamed at her, his old face brightening a bit as if hearing all the children in her age group brought an unspeakable joy to his weathered heart. If he did, seeing his smile of approval to her made Lia want to sing and dance her victory out.

But instead she sat down in the circle with her classmates once again, resuming the painting they were to do on their wooden crosses. She was letting her imagination run free, swirling patterns and mixing colors together to create new ones all over the piece of the wood that was bigger than her hand. It was about a foot tall and about the same amount wide on the horizontal line, but not very thick or heavy at all. It was just right for the creative little five year old girl, and it seemed to content the other 5-8 year olds.

That's when something caught her eye. It was shiny and looked golden, and it was just outside the big window in the classroom that stretched across the entire wall but had a little wall part in front of it, a little less than halfway up. She rose from the big white sheet laid across for them all to work on, trying not to get her feet (which had gotten some red paint on them) on the soft pink carpet while not knocking down the several paint jars over.

She finally got far enough to where she could stand on her tiptoes, craning her body forward so she could peer out of the window. The shiny reflection danced on the wall as a boy danced on the street in front of their church, looking full of life and like he was having the time of his life as he broke out his freestyle moves. A few people were gathered around him, watching and tossing coins in a top-hat with a few other coins already in there, and the little girl gasped in amazement as he did a backflip.

"Mr. Henry, may I go give him a quarter?" her mother had already given her four quarters for the offering, but she thought he was deserving and amazing enough to deserve just one of her precious coins.

"Why don't you finish your cross?" while the old teacher wasn't trying to judge the young man in sweat pants and a baseball hat turned sideways on his head as he did his dancing to some new pop band, he didn't want his entire class staring at him or going out there alone. So he guided his young pupil back to her place on the paper sheet covering for the floor with a patient hand, brushing off her light pout as he went to grab some stain remover from where her feet touched the bare carpet.

Ten minutes went by slow enough for little Lia, and as soon as the timer rang, she darted out of the room. She felt a bit guilty about not helping clean up like she always did, but she wanted to get outside and give the guy dancing a coin before he left.

"Mommy, mommy!" she crowed, grabbing her mother's hand and shaking it anxiously, "can we go outside so I can give the dancing boy a quarter?"

"Dancing boy?" Maria raised an eyebrow at her daughter's request, walking over briskly to the nearest window in her high heeled shows and strained to see through the stained glass.

She made out the figure of a form dancing on the street, and she lifted her child up to see for approval, "Yes! That's him, Mommy, he's really good!"

"We'll have to wait after service to see him dance, Lia," she told the child, setting her down and smoothing down her short blue dress, checking to make sure none of the paint on her daughter's soft blue flower dress hadn't gotten on. Even when the kids had aprons on, her child would somehow still got covered.

"But Mommy…." Being five, the little girl with long curly blonde hair to her thighs didn't understand many things about the world. But she did have a feeling inside that this boy was special.

But Maria saw was a teenager trying to earn a couple of bucks to afford a video game or something like that. While she understood what it was like to want things like that when you were young, she also needed her daughter to understand church was a _lot _more important than that. So she grabbed her daughter's hand and pulled her to their usual pew, ignoring her pout and light whining as well as Mr. Henry had during Sunday class.

The session couldn't have gone more slowly for the little girl. Her big brown eyes kept darting towards the several stained glass windows filling the room as the preacher said big words and preached about things she was too young to understand, thinking only of the Dancing Boy. She worried the entire hour whether or not he'd already left, and she kept a coin in her little dress pocket on her chest despite her mother's raised eyebrow when she only handed three quarters into the offering bowl.

"I don't know where the other one went," she felt bad about lying, but if she told the truth, then she'd be forced to hand over that coin she meant to go to Dancing Boy.

As soon as service ended, the slightly chubby blonde raced out of the wide swinging door with the first couple to exit. Her little black church shoes clicked as she ran down the street, towards Dancing Boy, who was just now putting up his stereo in a gym bag. He looked hot and sweaty, but she determined to see him dance in person just once.

"Excuse me, sir," she stopped in front of him, panting softly in the June air, "but will you dance one more time?"

"Sorry, kid," he wiped his reddened forehead of the sweat still pouring down it, "but it isn't worth it."

"What do you mean?" she titled her head to the side, "you're a really good dancer! I saw you in…"

"I'm not good enough and it doesn't matter if you saw me," he instantly snapped at her, taking off the red hat and letting a mass of black curls fall down his neck and cover his eyes, "I'm not going to make it."

He yanked the gym bag on his shoulder, not caring enough to zip it up as he started to stalk down the street. She reached down after a moment of stunned silence to scoop up the other hat with the coins in it, racing after him.

"Excuse me, but you forgot this hat," she extended it to him, and her eyes filled instantly as soon as he smacked it out of her hands, sending the coins rolling everywhere on the hot concrete and making the hat fly into the road where it was flattened by a car before it hit the pavement.

"I said I'm not going to make it!" he barked at her, turning around and throwing his baseball hat down in his fit of anger, "what's it matter if I have twenty cents?"

Suddenly, he'd ripped off the sweatshirt he was wearing that was red and had a picture of their school district's mascot, the Red Pigs. He had a thin stomach and his ribs poked out on his heavily sweating bare upper torso, and he threw that beside his hat. He grabbed at his sweat pants before deciding against it, then stepped towards the road full of people coming out of church and trying to go somewhere unknown from all other directions.

"Where are you going? You could get run over!" Lia gasped as one foot hit the road pavement, and he whipped his head toward her a single jerk.

"That's the point!" he took another step forward, shaking all over, "I'm done with this life!"

"No!" she grabbed the back of his sweatpants in desperation, yanking them down as she tried to pull him back. When he moved again forward, his ankles caught on the fabric, making him tip forward and crash down face-first with her landing on top of him because of his weight.

He'd just shoved her off of him when the brakes squealed, Lia screamed, and Maria, who was running up the walkway to her daughter, cried out, "STOP!"

"Dancing Boy?" the little girl ran into his hospital room ahead of Maria a couple of days later, her mother's scolding long forgotten about going out without her and now that thought replaced with her deep concern.

"It's you," he groaned a bit, but it was because of his broken neck and wounds across his back from getting run over.

"You're lucky you didn't break your back, young man," Maria was always a strict mother figure to any child, teenager or toddler, "where are your parents?

"Don't got any, lady," now he groaned out of not wanting to hear nagging from some lady he'd never met before now, and his gray-blue eyes fixed to the girl, "why are you here?"

"I wanted to give you this," Lia pressed the precious quarters into his open palm, and he instantly tried to give it back best he could with a sprained wrist.

"I don't need this…" he sighed heavily, staring at the ceiling and looking like he was slipping out of sanity, "I want to die."

"Why?" the child's eyes widened, and her mother gasped a little, rushing as if to cover her ears but getting brushed off.

"My mom died in a car crash last year," Dancing Boy grunted as he clenched his fists, "and then my dad committed jumping off a building in front of me. I got kicked out of school and now I'm starving and homeless. I'm done messing with this bull crap."

Instead of telling him 'crap' was a mean word, the small blonde pressed the coin further in his palm, "I know how you feel."

"No you…." He was practically yelling, and Maria quickly pressed the button to signal for a nurse, seeing his blood pressure and heart rate spike and honestly just ready to get her daughter out of there.

"My daddy died two years ago," she held up two stubby fingers to emphasize the number, "'cause he laid down in the road when there were cars. I was sad and cried a lot, but Mommy told me what He said and I felt better."

"He?" the fifteen-year-old raised an eyebrow, "who?" He was hooked onto her story, how her voice sounded older than five at that time, how her eyes looked like they were a hundred years older.

"God, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ," the young girl smiled widely, loving to tell him what she'd learned, "for God so loved the world, he sent his only begotten son to die on the cross for our sins. That was John 3:16."

"Oh yeah…" he nodded, remembering a little bit from going to church as a kid, "so what?"

"Mommy told me God loved us so much that his son died for us a long, long time ago. And he still loves us today," she smiled, curling his fingers around the coin and rubbing his knuckles gently in comfort, "so if you pray and ask for help, He will give it to you. She told me things always get better because He is there, even when you want to cry forever."

_Well, the kid's not stupid, _Dancing Boy thought as he nodded slowly, still feeling as depressed as ever but hearing her out.

"How do you pray?" he thought it sounded stupid, since he was older and all, but it'd been so long….

"Just close your eyes…" he did as she instructed, following her lead, "bow your head, put your hands in front of your face, say 'Dear God', then say what you wanna to God."

He bit his chapped lower lip as he thought a minute, and Maria smiled softly In her pride to her daughter. She now met the nurse in the hallway, closing the door softly and trusting that the young girl would be careful. Something inside her told her that Lia knew what was doing, and Maria listened to this voice.

"Dear God…" Dancing Boy began, thinking a little more, "um….it's been a long time since I talked to you. But…I uh…could use some help."

"Tell him why," Lia's soft voice encouraged in his ear, and he started to feel his anger towards her and towards the world start to melt a little bit as his gates opened.

"My mom and dad are dead and I…I really miss them both. I'm…I'm really scared that I'll die, so I tried….tried to end my life myself. But I…I don't really want to. I'm just so scared….so please help me. I know they won't live again, but…but I need help. So…uh…thanks for listening."

He thought a second for how you ended prayers, "Oh…amen."

"Amen," Lia opened her eyes and hugged his arm gently in place of his neck, "I know he's heard you."

"How do you know?" he strained his ears, trying to hear any answer from God, and she just smiled gently.

"He doesn't talk to you like I do, but I just know," she touched her heart gently, then touched his, "I can feel it in here. Please, Dancing Boy…just wait and watch things get better for you."

"I will…" he actually smiled as she started to skip out, looking at the coin in his hand and gripping it tight.

Eight years went by in a blur of shedding her childhood and now being stuck somewhere in between as she grew in body, mind, and faith for Christ. She now understood what the preacher said more, and she was reading the Bible every night before now. Her hair was still down her thighs and her eyes were still big and childlike, but she had grown into her Christian life and was content with it as she headed for teenage years.

She was now heading for home after church with her mother, waving goodbye to Mr. Henry, her old Sunday school teacher as her feet hit the pavement. She suddenly remembered Dancing Boy as she saw a couple of girls dancing on the sidewalk, and she tossed it a couple of dollars from her wallet in their hats, making them smile broadly.

"Don't they look a little young?" Maria was as skeptic as ever about everything, and Lia looked back to the two squealing four year olds. Hm…they _did _look too young….

That's when she saw him. Curly black hair, brown eyes, a sweatshirt with the Red Pig on it and dark blue sweatpants. His black hat was beside their two smaller ones, and he was holding a Wal-Mart sack. That's when the two noticed a girl had been behind the dancing girls in a chair that looked about his age, which was twenty three now. She had red hair that curled to her shoulders and pale green eyes that matched the two petite little girls' who'd been dancing, and their matched his.

"Dancing Boy?" she called out, smiling as wide as she did when she first laid eyes on him, "who you got there?"

"Hey…you're that kid," he suddenly smiled as well, walking to her and embracing her suddenly, which she found a nice surprise compared to how he first treated her, "that is my wife, Anna Marie. And those two who just gave money to are my twin daughters, Taylor and Tiffany."

"You got married and now got kids in eight years?" she grinned, "what did I tell you? The Lord words miracles, doesn't He?"

"I met her through another local church," he explained, still smiling and looking at what his family, "one of those who were volunteering to help me pay for the hospital bill, like your church. She came up one day to give me a meal, and we kind of hit it off that year. As soon as I was healed, we got married and eloped for a while."

"I see, I see…." She gripped his hands now, smiling her relief and her joy for the boy she knew for a little while as a young child, "and you go to church now?"

"We live there," he smiled, looking almost too calm to be that tempermental teenager who tried to end his life once, "we're working to earn enough for a home of our home right now, but we've stayed there after we eloped on the run for a while. We regret having to steal when we eloped, thought they forgave us either way, though."

Lia felt her love for the Lord flourish a thousand fold, "To think…all because I told you to pray."

"I owe to you," he grinned, embracing her again, "feel free to visit us at the First Northwest Baptist Church anytime."

"Anytime," she swore, kissing his cheek as his wife called for him, telling him it was time to get back before the sun was gone.

"Oh, by the way…" he had to snicker a little, "my name's Jake Wallis."

"I'm Lia Jenson," she laughed a little back, waving him off as she went back to Maria, "that went well."

"I told you God was amazing," Maria said it matter-of-factly, though her eyes were kind and proud.

_I won't give you more, _

_More than you take. _

_And I might let you bend, _

_But I won't let you break. _

'He said' played in their car as they headed for home, and Lia bowed her head as those lyrics played.

"Dear God, I know you've blessed me in many ways. Please continue to bless Dancing Boy…I mean Jake…and his beautiful family. Thank you for all that you do, and in God's name I pray, Amen."

She couldn't help but giggle when she saw another teenage boy dancing on the sidewalk as soon as she opened her eyes.

**Author Note: **God is blessing us, no matter what we may think or feel in our minds/hearts. He will always love us, and He will never give up on us. He is amazing, and all knees should fall to praise him, Even if you curse His Holy name or hate on Him, or even on this story, he still blesses you and you are still glorifying Him by breathing because you are His creation.

God bless you all today, and always remember it will always get better if you ask Him for it to.

God and I love you all very much! :D


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